The Disease in the Dumpster Bones
by GealachGirl
Summary: How I Met Your Mother, Bones, House, Dr. Horrible's sing-along blog, and Psych come together in an awesome crossover fan fiction. Starting with Barney finding bones and ending with the main characters from each show solving a murder together. Enjoy please
1. Chapter 1

Authors Note: Alright, I'm not sure how well this is going to work out, for a few reasons. 1. This is my first story for this site. 2. This is my first crossover. 3. I'm crossing a lot of things here.

So, please excuse me if it's sloppy or not well molded together. And, please review and tell me if it is.

I do not own Bones, How I Met Your Mother, House, M.D., Dr. Horrible's sing-along blog, or Psych. Trust me, I wish I did.

"I'm telling you Gus. This is one of the greatest cities in the world," Shawn Spencer said dramatically, sweeping his arm to indicate all of New York City.

"Yeah, except for the fact that Juliet isn't here," Gus corrected him.

Shawn sighed. "Yeah. Except for that."

"But, I am really glad that we finally get to go on vacation. No more murders and creepy suspects to deal with," Gus said.

Barney stuck his head out the door and looked around. Good, the alley was empty. He strode over to the Dumpster and picked up one of the TV's. He smashed it against the ground and took satisfaction in hearing the crunch of the plastic and the shattering of the glass.

God, why couldn't Robin just stay away from other guys until he was ready to take her back? He realized what he'd just thought and shook his head.

The door opened and Barney quickly pressed himself against the wall behind the Dumpster. He really didn't want anyone to see him out here, especially by the remains of the TV.

"Barney?" came the softly called question.

He peeled himself off of the wall just enough to see who it was. It was Lily. After a quick debate he decided he could trust her, she didn't know that he was still in love with Robin and he would like to share it with her. After all, she had helped a little last time he'd pursued Robin.

"Yeah?" he asked. He came out into the open, straightening his tie and smoothing his hair down a little.

"What are you doing?" Lily asked, surveying the destroyed TV in front of her.

"Letting off some steam," Barney answered.

Lily looked at him in amazement. "Is it because Robin's dating that Steve guy? Oh, Barney it's not going to last long, I can tell by looking at her," Lily said comfortingly, rubbing Barney's shoulder.

Barney turned to her, "Really?"

Before Lily could answer, the door opened again. Barney scrambled behind the Dumpster, crouching down, in spite of a look of exasperation from Lily. It was Ted.

"Lily? What are you doing out here?"

"I'm helping Barney come to terms with his feelings," she answered.

Ted looked around. "Where is he?" Lily gestured to the Dumpster. He nodded.

Suddenly, there came a loud yell. From behind the Dumpster.

Barney jumped out from behind the Dumpster and scrambled away as fast as he could.

"What's wrong?" Ted asked, looking from the Dumpster to Barney in alarm.

"Ske-ske-skeleton," Barney stuttered, wide-eyed, still backing away a little.

"Whatever Barney, you're full of crap," Lily said. But she'd never seen him freaked out like this, she backed up a little too. She decided not to see if he was telling the truth or not. Ted was wary too, his friend could lie really well, but taking the fact that he already had his phone out and was calling the police, he guessed that this was real.

"Yeah, uh, Barney Stinson. In the alley behind McLaren's bar. I found a skeleton behind the Dumpster. What do you mean what was I doing behind the Dumpster in an alley behind a bar? Aren't you more interested that I found a skeleton? Well you should be. Just, come over, I can explain it when you get here."

Shawn heard the sirens and saw the lights. There were three cop cars speeding down the street in the same direction. He looked on, very interested. He was even considering following them until Gus grabbed him by the arm.

"No way man. We are not going to get tangled up in something like this, not while we're on vacation," Gus said.

Shawn shook him off. "Maybe you aren't, but I am. My psychic senses are drawing me to the scene of a crime. A crime that may need my gifts." Shawn put his fingers on his temples.

Gus batted his hand down. "Knock it off Shawn."

"We're still going to go check this out," Shawn was already walking down the street, following the trail of police cars, that was still going by. That made five already.

Gus knew there was no arguing. "Fine," and he followed.

Police cars showed up almost immediately. And, of course, half of the cops went to drag the Dumpster aside to reveal the skeleton. The other half began to bombard Barney, Ted, and Lily with questions.

As soon as the police showed up Robin and Marshall came outside to see their friends surrounded by police officers. They rushed over to see what was going on. The bartender and several of the patrons showed up at the doorframe too. A few of the police officers herded them back inside, assuring them that everything was going fine.

When they tried to get Marshall and Robin inside though, they were met with protests and claims that it was the man's wife and his two friends there. The woman claimed that it was her roommate and her two friends. So, the police let them stay.

Robin went over to Lily. "What the hell happened?"

Lily was shaking a little bit. "Well, Barney found that skeleton behind the Dumpster," she said, pointing to the Dumpster.

Robin turned to Barney, confused. "What were you doing behind the Dumpster out here?"

"That's exactly what we were wondering," a police officer said, walking up.

"Is that the only thing that people care about? Not the fact that there's a full, human, skeleton over there but the fact that I was behind the Dumpster?"

"Yes," the police officer said.

"I was blowing off some steam," he said, gesturing to the TV on the ground.

Everyone except for Lily gave him a weird look.

One of the police officers standing by the body looked over. "Uh, chief? We might need to call D.C. None of our guys can tell what happened here, or how to get this skeleton out of here."

Barney, Ted, Marshall, Lily, and Robin were confused. Why did they have to bring in the Feds?

"Alright, put a call in to the Jeffersonian. Brennan isn't it?"

"Yes sir."

"Come on Bones. We have a case up in New York. Remains found behind a Dumpster in the city," Booth said, looking into Brennan's office.

"Shouldn't that be the job of the NYPD?" she asked, reluctant to leave the pictures of a specimen that had been sent to her that she was examining.

"They need you. None of their guys are good enough. Besides, the remains are actually complete," Booth added, knowing that would draw her attention.

He was right, she looked up again and seemed more interested.

"Alright, let's go," she said, grabbing a jacket on her way out.

Booth pumped his fist and followed her out.

Authors Note: There will be more soon. I promise. And we'll get into how House and Dr. Horrible come in.


	2. Chapter 2

Shawn and Gus arrived at the scene to see five people surrounded by cops. They also saw what looked like a Dumpster surrounded by cops.

"What's with the Dumpster?" Gus asked looking around confused.

Shawn didn't answer. He was too busy taking in all of the little details about the scene, just like his dad had shown him. If he looked close enough, he could see the edges of what looked like a skeleton from behind the Dumpster. "There's something behind it, bro. That's what's with the Dumpster."

Gus shuddered and looked away, looking grossed out.

But already, Shawn was trying to get into the crowd. He was pushing through, announcing, "Psychic here. Psychic coming through."

A policeman turned around and looked at him strangely. "Why are you here? This is a closed off area."

Shawn put his fingers to his temple again. "It was my psychic senses that brought me. The remains of a poor human called to me to help solve their murder."

A blond man in an expensive looking suit turned and looked at him strangely.

"We don't need a psychic here."

"Oh but you do. I see that your men are all avoiding an important detail, there's a smashed TV on the ground there."

The man in the suit cleared his throat. "That was me," he said.

Shawn surveyed the man closer. It didn't look like he'd just smashed a TV against the ground, but the way everyone else was looking at him he could tell that the man was telling the truth. And whatever had caused the man to smash a TV against the ground was obviously emotional.

"Sorry. The emotions in the air are confusing my senses. I'm picking up on some strange things. I'm just going to get some fresh air," Shawn noticed a panicked look on the blond man's face and stepped back to Gus to survey the scene some more.

Barney looked after the man who claimed he was a psychic. It was obvious to him that the man was lying, probably because Barney lied so much, but there was something about him that seemed like he knew what was going on.

The police officers were getting on his nerves. It was one thing to be questioned, it was another thing for them to treat you like you'd just been proven guilty.

Just then, partial salvation came. It came in the form of a black SUV.

Brennan stepped out of the SUV and looked at the crime scene. Everyone was moving out of her way as she went over to the Dumpster. Behind her, Booth was flashing his badge. Just to show everyone that this was official.

The remains were intact like Booth had said. She knelt down beside them and took out her recorder.

"Female. Mid-thirties. Severe burn marks on the bone. Chips and cracks in the bone, most look post-mordem."

"So, uh is that all you can tell?" Booth asked, leaning over her shoulder.

"For now, without proper lab equipment yes. But it should be enough to let us get the remains sent to the Jeffersonian. Wait, not quite. There's something else. I originally thought it to be bruising. But it looks like scorch marks. This victim was killed with some kind of powerful ray."

Barney's eyes widened as soon as he'd heard the chick in the CSI scrubs say ray. He panicked and ran off. The police were done with them anyway.

Lily looked after him, confused. What was wrong with him now? All of the friends stared after Barney as he ran out of the alley, unnoticed by everyone else.

Brennan left the crime scene before Booth, he wanted to stay behind and question people. The remains were being shipped to the Jeffersonian and she was heading back to the hotel room that she'd gotten.

She got there and changed her clothes. She went over to the window to look at her view of New York City. Suddenly, she felt an enormous pressure build up at the back of her head and she slumped to the ground.

Robin was at Barney's apartment to see if she could find out what was wrong with him. The way he'd run out of the alley was unlike anything he'd done before. She shook her head, she could waste large amounts of time wondering what was wrong with Barney, or she could find out for herself. So, she knocked on the door.

Barney didn't answer after five minutes so she knocked again. "Barney! It's me Robin. Open up!" The door still didn't open. She gave up.

She knew where Barney kept a spare key from her time living with him. So, she grabbed it and inserted it into the lock. Robin turned the knob and went into the front room.

"Barney?" she called. No answer. She took a few more steps into the apartment and saw something on the ground. She moved around a chair and found Barney laying on his stomach, on the floor, passed out.

"Oh my God," she said sliding to her knees beside him. She shook his shoulder and called his name but got no response. Robin leaned back on her heels and took her cell phone out. She quickly dialed 911.

"Yes, I just found my friend lying on the floor in his apartment. He's not responding to his name or waking up when I shake his shoulder," she listened closely to the response.

"I just got here. He wasn't acting sick earlier, no, he hasn't been sick recently. He doesn't have any existing diseases that could cause something like this. Just, hurry up! What do you mean you don't know what it is? New Jersey? Why New Jersey?" The reply came back calmly. "Fine, but hurry."

Robin looked down at Barney, tapping his shoulder again.

Booth had been unsuccessful with his interrogation, no one seemed to know anything. He went to the hotel and went to his room, right by Bones's. He knocked on her door first though, he wanted to know if there was already something else she knew. But, there wasn't an answer.

He knocked again. Harder. "Bones!" Still no answer.

Frustrated and a little worried, he leaned against the door and broke the lock. He saw Bones by the window, laying on the ground. He hurried over and immediately called 911. Once he fed them the right information he was told that they would take Bones to New Jersey because she had a condition that no one had any idea how to treat. That made Booth wonder if there was anything but idiots in New York. So, he told them to step on the gas and get to the hotel as soon as they possibly could.

Shawn was still trying to think of a way to get into this new case when he saw two ambulances rushing by on the street below. His eyes widened when he noticed that they were from the Princeton Plainsboro teaching hospital in New Jersey, and on a quick glance into the windows, he thought he recognized the woman from the crime scene and the man in the suit.

"Quick, Gus! We have to follow those ambulances!" Shawn yelled behind him, already running out the door.

Gus knew better than to try and stop him, so he followed Shawn and they too were on their way to New Jersey.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I know it's been awhile. It's because I was waiting for proof that someone's actually read it before adding more. For the ages, I'm using the actor's ages. And I'm not a med. student or a doctor so I'm not going to actually go into detail on diseases, I'm pretty sure that the disease I'm going to make it isn't even a disease. To signal that there's a change in show, I'm going to put a * by the beginning of it.

"A 34 year old woman and 38 year old man were admitted an hour ago, unconscious. Elevated heart rate and rashes. On the man, on the legs. On the woman, on the arms," House said turning in his chair. He looked at his team.

"Why are they here? It says that they're from New York and DC," Chase said, looking at his file and back at House.

"Well, I assume the idiots in both places don't know what's wrong with them. Come on, differential, go!"

*Lily, Ted, and Marshall had responded to Robin's call immediately. Now they were at the hospital. The nurses at the front desk gave them directions to the room and they saw Robin standing by the bed with a still unconscious Barney on it.

Lily stepped into the room and went over to Robin. "Are you alright?" she asked.

Robin looked at Lily, "Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" but she said it in a way that kept Lily from believing her.

"Well, probably because you just found one of your friends laying on the floor of his apartment for no reason and he was rushed to a hospital in New Jersey just because there's a specialist here who diagnoses strange things like this," Lily answered.

"Yeah, that would do it."

Ted and Marshall walked into the room then.

"Hey, are those the FBI people from the crime scene?" Ted asked Marshall.

Marshall looked and saw the dark haired FBI agent standing by a bed that had the woman from the crime scene on it.

"Yeah. Maybe they won't recognize us."

Lily looked over and saw them too. She walked over to the man and said, "What happened to her?"

"I found her on the floor in her hotel room," he answered.

"Well that's how we found our friend too, I wonder what's wrong with them. Did she feel sick earlier?"

"I don't think so. She probably wouldn't have told me if she had."

"That's weird. I'm Lily, that's Robin, Marshall, Ted, and the one on the bed is Barney. Who are you guys?"

"I'm special agent Seeley Booth, this is my partner Dr. Temperance Brennan from the Smithsonian in DC."

Lily nodded. "Well it looks like we're in the same boat. And, we might be here for awhile."

*"Come on Gus!" Shawn yelled, running through the doors of the hospital. He stopped at the desk and waited for him.

Gus came up panting. "Shawn, this is a bad idea, we should not be here. We should be enjoying our vacation."

"But how else are we going to stop a murderer?" Shawn asked.

"That's the point, Shawn."

But Shawn was done listening. He saw a nurse and went over to her. "Excuse me ma'am, but friends of ours came in here about an hour ago. A man in an expensive suit, and a woman with brownish hair and hazel eyes. Could you tell us what room they're in?"

The nurse pointed and went back to the folders she was holding. Shawn tossed a thank you behind his shoulder and ran off in the direction she'd pointed. Gus ran after him.

They entered the room and saw the red head, the really tall man, the dark-haired man, and the dark-haired woman in the room by the bed with the suit guy on it. They also saw the man from the FBI standing by the bed with the woman on it.

Pleased that they were in the same room, Shawn stepped forward to introduce himself.

But before he could the FBI man asked, "Who are you and why are you here?" he said it in a sort of threatening way and his hands were suspiciously close to his belt.

"I am Shawn Spencer and this is my partner and friend Jack Cracker. I am a psychic detective on vacation from the Santa Barbra Police Department. I thought we could help on the murder case and possibly on the case about this mysterious illness. Jack is a pharmacist that may be able to help," Shawn said with a flourish.

*Lily was worried about Barney and Temperance. She believed that the doctors here could help, but maybe with help from a psychic it would come faster. So she made herself the first one to introduce herself.

"I'm Lily Aldrin. This is my husband Marshall Erickson, that's Ted Mosby, and that's Robin Scherbatsky. The sick one is Barney Stinson."

That seemed to encourage Seeley. "I'm Special Agent Seeley Booth and this is my partner Dr. Temperance Brennan of the Jeffersonian."

Shawn looked more at ease now that he knew all of their names.

Marshall and Ted were excited, they'd never been around a psychic before, and psychics were awesome. Well at least in their minds they were.

Then there was noise from Temperance's bed. She was waking up.

*Dr. Temperance Brennan opened her eyes slowly and looked around. It appeared that she was in a hospital room. After a moment of confusion she remembered passing out in the hotel room.

Booth was standing by the bed. And once he saw that she was awake, his expression changed from one of concern to one of extreme happiness.

Brennan looked around some more and saw that the people from the crime scene were there too. The tall man, dark-haired woman and man, the red head, and in the bed next to hers the blond man that had been in a suit, and the other two who had shown up after everyone else.

"Booth? What's going on?" she asked, head and voice clear.

"I found you on the floor of your hotel room and you were brought here. This is the Princeton Plainsboro teaching hospital in New Jersey."

"But I only fainted, why am I here in New Jersey?"

"Because, Bones, they have a specialist here who caters to strange illnesses and diseases. He's an expert in this sort of stuff. You more than just fainted, you have a strange rash kind of thing on your arm."

"What about him?" she gestured to the blond man, "Does he have the same rash?"

"Yes," it was the red head who spoke. "His name is Barney Stinson. I'm Lily Aldrin, my husband Marshall Erikson, and my friends Robin Scherbatsky, and Ted Mosby. This is Shawn Spencer and Jack Cracker, they're trying to help on the case," she said.

Brennan was about to say something when the man on the bed next to hers, Barney, started moving.

All of Barney's friends moved over to his bed as if that would make him wake up faster. Brennan looked at Booth for more explanations. But he only gave her a look, telling her to wait until Barney was awake.

*Barney blinked at the bright lights overhead. He could vaguely see his friends faces in front of him.

He groaned, "Ted, what did I drink?"

"It wasn't drinking buddy, just wait, the doctors said they'd be back. They can explain it better than us."

"So I'm in a hospital? Where?"

"New Jersey," Lily said, without wrinkling her nose.

In fact, Lily and Ted sounded really worried about it. Now that they were all in focus a little more, he was able to see the looks on their faces, they all looked worried. Whatever was wrong with him was something big.

He looked around the room, and for the first time, noticed the dude and chick from the crime scene. Barney looked at Robin for an explanation but got a look telling him to wait.

It wasn't too long a wait until a doctor came in. She looked happy that they were awake, and she made sure to ask them a load of questions about how they were feeling and if they were uncomfortable or if there was something they wanted or needed.

Barney took this opportunity to ask for information. "What's wrong with us?" he asked, indicating the lady on the other bed.

"Well, that's why you're here. Nobody knows what's wrong with you. But don't worry, Dr. House will be able to figure it out."

"Can we meet this Dr. House?" he asked.

"That's up to the doctor sir. I'm not sure what he prefers in this case. So, you might."

Barney thought that that was a strange answer but he plowed on. "What about why we're here? What's the strange part of the disease?"

"Strange rashes. On your legs and on her arms. Red dots going all up and down."

"And you have no idea what this is?" the girl in the other bed asked.

"We have a few ideas, but that's all. We'll have to run some tests for a few of the ideas we have. I just came to see if you two were still stable or if you'd woken up, so we could start," she said.

Then a tall black man walked into the room.

"Who are you?" Barney asked.

"I'm Dr. Foreman, and we're going to get started with the tests now."

Barney sighed, it was going to be a long day, probably longer.

*Shawn had soaked all of it in, standing quietly while they were introducing themselves and the doctors started the tests. His mind was also working on the case at hand.

He went over to Booth and asked him over to the side. Gus followed them.

"So, are you still working on the murder case?" he asked in a whisper.

"Yes, I'm going to get on with the Bureau when Bones is okay," he said, watching as the doctors inserted needles and consulted charts and scanners.

Shawn nodded, "Well I have a few ideas and some theories if you're interested," he said.

Booth nodded too, "I may need them."

Shawn went back to listening to the doctors, holding on to little bits of information that could be useful later.

When all the tests were done and the doctors left, Brennan looked to Booth and asked, "Would you get my laptop and camera from my bag?"

Booth went over to the bag and took out both a white laptop and the camera that she'd been using at the crime scene the previous night.

*Brennan downloaded the images of the bones from the crime scene on to her laptop and saved them. Then she logged on to skype and contacted Angela, Hodgins, and Cam at the Jeffersonian.

"Oh my god, sweetie, where are you?" Angela asked.

"I'm in the hospital."

"Dr. Brennan? Where are you?" Cam asked because she'd just walked into the room. Angela turned to her.

"She's in the hospital."

"Which one?"

Brennan looked at Booth for help with that one.

"We're at the Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, in New Jersey."

"But I thought you were solving a crime in New York," Hodgins cut in.

"We were, until she got sick," Booth answered, then he explained all that had happened. He also mentioned that there was someone else with the same disease.

"That's why I called you guys up. I have the pictures from the crime scene. I'd like you to examine them and see if you can find anything. Booth's going to contact the NYPD to see if the bones can be transported to you," Brennan said, putting her hand on her arm, she pulled it back when she felt heat like a fever from it. She pulled the sleeve of her hospital gown back to look at her arm.

The rash was huge, extending from the bottom of her hands all the way up to mid-way past her elbow.

She looked at Booth, who was staring at her with wide eyes.

"Booth?" she asked, scared.

*Barney laid back down after the last test. He was sore now, though he was used to worse. He remembered a time when he'd had bruises and dislocated joints for days, never getting time to heal before more were added.

Ted came over and sat in the chair that was beside the bed.

"Pretty bad deal huh?" he asked.

"It could be worse," Barney said with a shrug. Though he was used to pain he was a little scared of this because no one knew what it was and there wasn't a definite treatment.

"Yeah. I guess it could be confirmed that you were going to die," Ted said.

"That's a delightful topic of discussion. Please continue," Barney said with a frown.

Ted shrugged. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do." He paused. "Are you guys going to stay?"

"Are you kidding? Leave you here in New Jersey all by yourself? Of course we're staying."

Barney smiled.


	4. Chapter 4

House watched his team work on the samples they'd gotten and run the tests that they needed to. He was already busy, thinking about what this disease could be. It wasn't going to be easy, he could tell. And that was why he'd chosen the case.

He rapped his cane on the glass and when the team looked up he yelled, "Results?"

Foreman answered, "Can't tell yet. The samples are abnormal."

House walked into the room. "What samples did you get?"

"The part of skin that had the rash, hair, saliva, and some blood," Masters said.

"How are they abnormal?" He asked, going over to look at it for himself.

*Brennan examined the pictures of the bones that she'd loaded onto her laptop. She also studied the ones that were pulled up on the skype feed.

"Turn the femur over and zoom in on the top." All of the people at the lab had to wear hazmat suits, just in case that the disease that they had came from something on the bones due to being behind a dumpster.

Two of the doctors walked in. One had blond hair and from the nametag he had on his coat it said his name was Dr. Chase. The other one was the redhead that had first talked to them when they'd woken up, Dr. Masters.

Booth came over from where he'd been talking to the Bureau about his situation and that he would work from the hospital.

All of the people around Barney's bed also looked up.

And so did Shawn and Jack.

"Do you know what this is?" The brown haired girl, Robin, asked.

"Actually no. While we were running our tests, we noticed that the samples we'd taken were abnormal in some way or another. I'm not going to bore you with details but it seems that whatever disease is attacking your body, it's contaminated your blood, hair, and skin. We're going to take some more samples to prove this. The skin, is actually the most important part. We'll take a bit from each rash, then some from various "clean" areas on the body."

Brennan nodded, she could appreciate this. She didn't like being poked and prodded with needles and tweezers, she'd much rather solve a murder. But she knew that this mystery had to be solved as well.

Barney looked resigned as if he didn't even feel like questioning.

"Are you feeling any pain?" Dr. Masters asked.

Brennan shook her head.

Barney looked up, "No."

The doctors nodded and started getting their samples.

*Shawn and Gus watched as the samples were gathered from Brennan and Barney. Shawn observed that the doctors looked a little nervous, like there was something they weren't telling them something. And it looked like Barney was wincing as the gathered some skin from his legs.

"Are you sure that there isn't anything else that you need to tell us?" he asked the doctor closest to him, the girl.

She looked at Dr. Chase like she was asking for permission. Shawn saw him shake his head ever so slightly.

"Come on. You can tell us. We're all big girls and boys here."

"You have more information?" Marshall asked.

"Tell us now," his wife added in a scary voice.

"It's against Dr. House's orders. Until he's sure he would prefer that we not say anything," Dr. Chase said.

"You don't know what it is. You don't have any clue. So why don't you just tell us how bad you think it might be?" Shawn asked.

Booth looked over at them. "You still don't know what this is?" His voice was raised.

Dr. Chase shook his head. "That's why we're doing the tests." His voice was a little louder too.

"Just tell us," Robin said, looking straight at Dr. Chase.

He sighed. "Alright. It's worse than we originally thought it was going to be. It's true that we don't know what it is exactly, but from the results of the test and the fact that the disease is damaging your blood and skin we know that it's probably not something pleasant."

"Thank you," Lily said in a cool voice, turning back to Barney and rubbing his hand. He had his eyes closed and his head was thrown back on the pillow.

The doctors left with their samples and the nine of them were left alone.

"I can't believe that asshole was about to just walk out without telling us that," Booth muttered angrily, looking down at Brennan.

Ted was turned to Shawn. "Dude, how did you know that?"

"I told you I was a psychic."

"Having psychic abilities is impossible," Brennan said for the fifteenth time. She'd been opposing his disguise since she'd first heard it.

"Obviously not, if I'm blessed with them," he responded, touching his fingers to his temples. Gus rolled his eyes.

*Could this have been payback for what had happened in LA three years ago? No, impossible. It had been an accident. A sad, horrible accident.

Caused by him.

Barney opened his eyes to see Robin closest to him. There was sadness and sympathy in her eyes and it touched him. Maybe they /could/ work. It was always possible.

"How are you doing?" she asked, quietly so only he could hear her under everyone else's talking and ranting.

"I'm okay. Kind of hungry and I feel like I was just beat up by someone."

"I can get you some food. And how do you know what it's like to be beaten up? You told me yourself that you've never been in a fight."

"Maybe I lied."

"Right, Barney Stinson being beat up. I'll see what I can do about the food."

"Okay." It was true. He'd never told anyone that he'd been beaten up day after day by a crazy guy who thought that he was a good guy.

'_Calm down Barney' he told himself. He wasn't going to get worked up by that right now. _

_He watched as the other people around him played cards and talked, and in the case of Brennan, looked at a laptop, muttering and writing down what was on it. She called Booth over a few times and they consulted with each other. He wondered what she was doing. _

"_Hey!" he yell-whispered at her. _

_She looked up. _

"_What are you looking at?" _

"_Images from the crime scene." She sounded a little annoyed. _

"_Okay, but what are you doing with them? What are you muttering and writing down?" _

"_My examinations. I'm a forensic anthropologist." _

"_What exactly is that?" _

"_It means that I examine and identify bones. I work with a team at the Jeffersonian and we solve murders." _

"_What kind of evidence do you have so far?" he asked. It was interesting. Science in general was interesting to him, even if it wasn't physics and chemistry._

"_I originally thought that various scorch marks were from some kind of ray gun, or something of the sort." _

_Barney's heart stopped. _

"_But, it appears that it would have been lower intensity and done after death and straight down at the chest. It wouldn't have killed the victim. Now I'm looking for any other type wounds. One of my team members, Angela, is busy re-constructing the face and identifying the person." _

"_I thought that identifying was your job." _

"_Not when I don't have the resources to do it. Besides, that's often how we do it, Angela recreates the face and we advertise it. Then whoever recognizes it, calls in or visits and we can start getting information about the victim's life and all of the people in their life." _

_Barney nodded. It was interesting. They kept talking about it until Robin came back with jello and sat down beside him. _

"_I kind of stole this from the cafeteria." _

_Barney looked at the jello nervously. _

"_Don't worry, you can eat. It's just because it's not dinnertime yet that they wouldn't just let me have it. And I could only get this, dinner's coming sometime soon though." _

"_Well thanks anyway," Barney said, taking the jello from Robin and digging his spoon into it. _

_Booth walked over to Brennan and with his eavesdropping skills, Barney was able to figure out what he'd said. _

"_The victim's name was Marie Anglofe. We got in touch with her mother and sister. They're coming here to talk to me. I've already talked to Dr. Lisa Cuddy and she said that it was alright if we used one of the board rooms for it. When they get here, I'm going to have to leave you for awhile, if that's alright." _

"_Yeah, that's fine." _

_Booth nodded and sat down beside her. _

_Barney turned back to Robin. _

"_So, why did you come to my apartment?" he asked in his most provocative voice. _

"_I wanted to see if you were okay. We noticed that you left the crime scene really fast, and I went to go see if you were alright. You're lucky I was worried too," she replied. _

_Barney was going to say something back when he noticed a tall man with a cane standing outside the door, staring at him. He stared back and the man limped away after a minute. This concerned Barney a little. It was like the man had been studying him, and he hated that feeling. _

_Especially when he had so much to hide._


	5. Chapter 5

Brennan still wasn't accepting Shawn's psychic-ness. Even though he was right almost every time that they asked him to predict something. She seemed to respect his abilities to predict things, but she told him that he was so good at it because he could analyze probability and odds.

That was ridiculous though, you could even ask his dad. He'd been horrible at that section in math, almost failing once or twice because he couldn't wrap his head around it.

Still, she insisted that he wasn't psychic, just very smart. Technically she was right, just replace the smart with observant and she would be spot-on.

Gus took him aside after his last prediction. "Dude, why don't you just drop it with her? You're not going to convince her that you're a psychic. She's a scientist."

"And Marshall's a lawyer. Together they should be able to strip me from the "disguise" but instead he's completely taken by it. Look Gus, we're giving Lily and Robin some hope that I can figure out what the disease is, and I'm preventing the doctors from keeping any information they have to themselves. It's a good thing."

Gus narrowed his eyes, "As long as it doesn't get too out of hand Shawn."

Shawn nodded, "Agreed."

*So far the results weren't back yet and it was driving Booth crazy. The victim's family would be there in about five minutes and he didn't want to be gone when the doctors came back, and he wanted to know what was going on. He glanced back down at his watch and looked out the door again.

"Don't they know that we're waiting?" he asked, turning back at all of the other people. Lily met his eye and shrugged. Robin just rolled her eyes and looked down at Barney, who had his head on the pillow, eyes closed.

"It'll be alright Booth. You'll find out when you come back. That is, if they come while you're gone," Brennan said frowning toward the doors.

"Come on guys, they'll be back in a little bit. I'm sure that all of those samples are taking awhile to test, and that they have to figure out what the results mean and stuff like that," Ted said in his forever optimistic way.

"Ted's right. They're probably on their way back now," Marshall chimed in, looking at his watch.

Booth looked at his watch again. They were probably here. "I have to go, the family's here. If the doctors come back and it's news that can't wait, come and get me. If it can wait a little bit just tell me when I get back okay?" Everyone nodded and he headed out of the room praying that nothing serious happened while he was gone.

*Robin looked down at Barney again. He wasn't asleep she knew for sure but she was pretty sure that he wasn't completely awake either. He'd leaned back and closed his eyes after he'd finished his jello, he'd said something about a tingle in his legs and then he kind of fell into this half-sleep thing that he was doing.

Robin was really worried about Barney, but then again everyone was. The thing was, and she was being totally honest with herself, she almost felt more worried than everyone else. When she'd gone to get the jello she'd made sure to go as fast as she could. And besides then she'd hardly left his bedside. And really, why had _she _gone to his apartment? Why not Ted or Marshall and Lily? She'd been thinking about Barney a lot recently, she didn't really even know why either.

So she had to face it, she was more worried than she should've been about _just a friend. _Why did this kind of stuff have to be so confusing?

Barney stirred on the bed, "Robin are you still there?" he asked, opening his eyes to slits.

"Yeah, I'm still here. I'm not leaving." She waited for his reply but it didn't come.

*House sat in his office balancing his cane on his wrist. He was thinking about that blonde man, Barney Stinson. There was something strange about him, something that he was hiding. House was sure of it, and he was great at sniffing this kind of stuff out.

Foreman was sitting across from him at the desk talking about how the rash was spreading upwards and naming a few different diagnoses. House knew that all of them were wrong and didn't give much thought to them. Instead he was trying to figure out what Barney could be hiding, and how he could get it out of him.

Thirteen ran part-way into the room, "The patients are crashing!" she yelled, then she disappeared down the hallway again.

Foreman reacted immediately and jumped up to follow her to the room. House got up too, and limped down the hall to the room.

His team was already on it, getting the crash carts out and starting them up. All of the family members or friends were looking on in horror and slight confusion. One woman with red hair looked close to tears. The patients were both stabilized quickly and the team started to examine them.

Chase came out of the room and went over to House. "They have fevers of 105 and the rash has spread rapidly. They need to be quarantined, especially since we don't know what this is." House was looking intently at Barney.

"Yes, do what you need to to get the fever down. And move them to quarantined rooms," House turned and limped back to his office still deep in thought.

The team went back in and started to move the patients, all while putting some more stuff into their IV's and doing what they could to bring the fever down. The hallway was pretty full, but once people saw two gurneys being pushed quickly down the hall, especially when they saw that they were being pushed by House's team, they got out of the way. The new rooms were right next to each other but they were away from the other patients. Both patients were out and probably wouldn't be awake again for a few hours.

The family and friends wanted to be with them right away, but Thirteen told them that they couldn't until the fevers broke and the two were more stable. So, they waited outside the doors, leaning against the walls and watching both sleeping forms.

* "I'm Special Agent Seeley Booth, thank you for coming to talk to me."

"They said that this was about Marie? What's wrong, is she in trouble or something?" an older looking brunette, probably the mom, said, looking worried.

"No Mrs. Anglofe. Your daughter was found murdered behind a dumpster in New York City."

The woman put her hand to her mouth and the sister hugged her. The sister looked at Booth, "How, how do you know that it was her? And that she was murdered?"

"Our forensic team in DC looked at the body and were able to identify it as Marie. There were various scorch marks on her body, we're sure that she was murdered."

The sister let out a strangled cry while the mother cried quietly. This was going to be a hard interrogation and Booth was really wishing that Sweets were here with him now.

"In order to catch the person who did this to Marie I'm going to need you two to tell me a little bit more about her and her personal life."

The two women both nodded slowly, still emotional.

Booth took a breath before starting.

Just then Marshall ran into the room. "Barney and Brennan just crashed!" Booth got up with lightning speed, turned to tell the women he'd be back and ran out of the room with Marshall.

"Are they okay?"

"The doctors stabilized them but now they're being moved to different rooms. They have really high fevers and they're asleep right now."

They ran into the hallway that everyone else was in and Booth went over to the door that went into Brennan's room. He put his hand on the glass and looked in sadly.

She was lying there so still. He had to remind himself that she was sleeping, not in a coma or dead. How could he go back to question those women when Bones was like this? He couldn't leave her and still be a decent person could he? But Bones would want him to go question the family so he could catch the murderer.

So he everyone about what he was doing, that he'd be back, and to come get him when she woke up or if something else happened to the two. Everyone promised they would and he headed back to the room that the two women were waiting in. On his way, he pulled out his phone and dialed Sweets. There was no way that he was going to go through this emotion-fest without Sweets to help him.

He set the phone on speaker, turned up the volume, and sat down again. "Sorry ladies, I had to go check on a friend. Another friend of mine, Dr. Sweets who is an FBI psychologist, is going to be questioning you too. Right Sweets?"

"Yes Agent Booth. I'm here."

"Okay, let's get started."

*_She smiled and his heart melted. They were sitting next to each other on the couch in his apartment drinking Scotch and talking. It wasn't the kind of talking they usually did either. This had more meaning and seemed more important than anything else that they'd ever talked about. Then, his beautiful Robin leaned over and was about to say something when…_

Barney woke with a start. He was in a new room and everything was a little hazy. The first thing that he realized after that was that he was _extremely_ hot, he put his hand to his forehead and jerked it back instantly. No wonder he was exhausted and everything felt dulled. He had a dangerously high fever.

"Shit," was all he said. He really didn't want to die now. Of course there were some parts of him that did, but he had so many unresolved things to take care of first.

His mind drifted back to the dream he'd just been having. Robin. That was the one thing that was on his mind. He decided to use some advice that Lily had given him a long time ago and actually try to pursue her, not just let her come to him.

But first he needed to make a few things right. He looked around and saw the laptop that he'd asked Ted to go get for him a few hours ago. Barney grabbed it and turned it on. It was 3:00 in the morning and he glanced out into the hallway while the computer was starting up.

All of his friends were laying there in the hallway asleep. Barney was touched that they all cared enough to sleep outside of him and Brennan's rooms. Then he laughed a nice, short, quiet version of his evil laugh at the idea of the pains in the necks they were going to have the next day. It would be amusing to listen to them complain.

Once the computer was up and running he logged onto the internet and a document. He started doing research and taking notes. And he never noticed the man with the cane watching him intently as he worked.

After a half hour Barney found it hard to focus, maybe it was because of his ADHD but he still felt like everything was a little dulled and fuzzy and he reasoned with himself that making plans to take down the Evil League of Evil while he was still sick wasn't a good idea. He shut down his computer and laid back down, feeling weaker than he had when he'd woken up.

A headache burst into his skull and he winced putting his hand to his forehead; he wanted to go back to sleep to be away from the pain.

Luckily for him, sleep came in a few minutes when the headache was at its peak.

*House watched Barney for the forty minutes that he was awake. When he'd woken up he looked happy and a few seconds after his expression had changed to resolved, like he'd just decided to do something that he'd been meaning to do. After Barney started working Dr. House noticed all of the signs of him weakening again. Whatever the disease was it was eating away at his body, making him sleep so the body could actually try and repair itself.

House's mind was whirling on two problems. The first was the disease of course, the fact that Dr. Brennan hadn't woken up yet, even briefly, concerned him. And the second problem was the one about Barney's secret, House had an idea that could make the secret surface but he wasn't sure how safe it was with how sick Barney was.

He would have to think about it some more.

*Booth had a few suspects and with the help from Sweets and the rest of the Squints he was able to narrow it down to one lead. One lead that could give them the answers to the murder and to the disease. Needless to say, Booth was ready to go out and pick this guy up. But first he needed to see Bones.

He walked quietly down the hallway since it was so late and slipped into the hallway where everyone was either on the floor or slumped against the wall, asleep. Smiling, Booth looked into the rooms where Bones and Barney laid.

Barney was stirring in his sleep, fidgeting from side to side. He wasn't waking up but he did look extremely uncomfortable. Bones still lay there peacefully, and Booth was so entranced by the sight that he didn't notice the man leaning against the wall, twirling a cane in his hand.

"Are you hers?" the man asked, making Booth notice him.

"Huh? Uh, I know her yes, and we're friends but I don't think you'd put it like we were together," Booth stumbled on the words out of surprise.

The man nodded.

Booth regained his composure and looked at the man. "Who are you?"

"Who are you?"

"FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth. Tell me who you are or I'll arrest you."

"You can't arrest me for not giving you my name. Besides, I could give you a fake name and you would never know and it would be the same as not giving you my name."

Booth sighed, he'd just gotten done interrogating two very emotional women, not that they didn't have the right to be, they did, he was just tired that was it. So he let the subject of the man's name drop. "Do you know anything about what's wrong with them?" he asked almost hopeful.

"I know that they're very sick and that this disease that they have is eating them alive. If it isn't treated soon, they will die."

Booth let out a strangled cry on the last phrase. _No, Bones can't die. She's tough, she's _**not**_ going to die, _he thought to himself. _Please God? _

The man was still talking, "Their rashes are spreading, the woman's: stretching across her shoulders and down her back. The man's: all the way up his legs and around his torso under his navel. Dr. Brennan hasn't woken up since she crashed. However Stinson was just awake for forty-five minutes before falling back under.

"Is that a good thing? For Barney I mean," his heart was pounding with the news about Bones but he wanted to know what kind of state Barney was in, he'd gotten to be pretty good friends with Barney's four friends.

The man shrugged. "For now it is. I need to figure this out." The man pulled a ball out of his jacket pocket, flourished it at Booth, and tossed it to him.

Booth caught it in surprise. Sniper reflexes were still evident. "You're going to be my whiteboard Booth," the man said.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm Dr. House," Booth gaped at him, "I need to think, and I'm going to bounce ideas off of you. You can talk a few times, but all you need to do is catch the ball and throw it back. Got it?"

"You're the son of a bitch that tried to keep information away from us? And how come you haven't shown your face until now? Most people like to know who's in charge of saving their life!" It felt good to do that. Bones's current condition and the murder investigation had him stressed out. He really was mad at Dr. House too. How could he be such a coward and not show his face at least once?

"Yes. Now unless you want Dr. Brennan to die you'll help me think of what's wrong with her."

Booth tossed the ball back to Dr. House and they proceeded to play catch while House listed the symptoms out loud, "crossed out" things it couldn't be, and got stumped. When the ball went back to House he held onto it and sighed.

"What's wrong?" Booth asked.

"I can't think of what it is."

Booth couldn't speak, he couldn't hear. All he could think was, _Bones is going to die?_

House looked at his face and nodded.

**The Next Day in the hallway: **

*Shawn woke up with the biggest pain in the neck he'd ever had. It took him a minute to realize that he was sleeping on the floor in the hallway of a hospital. He looked into the rooms to see if Barney or Brennan were awake yet.

At first glance into Brennan's room he could tell that she hadn't moved at all. So if she _had_ woken up, which Shawn doubted, it was only to open her eyes then go back to sleep. However, Barney's bed was a complete mess. The sheets were wrinkled up all over the place and he was moving in his sleep. So he'd either woken up and moved around or he'd had a restless night which was still a good thing if what Gus said about the human body were true.

Yeah, because of this Shawn had gotten several anatomy lessons from Gus at random moments whenever the doctors had come into the room and done something.

Shawn looked up and saw Booth staring in at Brennan from his place at the corner of the hallway. He got up and went over to him. "Everything okay buddy?" he asked warily, wanting to make sure that Booth didn't snap on him.

"No. I talked to Dr. House last night, he came over to watch them and he said that he doesn't know what this disease could be. And he's pretty sure that if Bones doesn't wake up for longer than fifteen minutes soon, there's a good chance she won't wake up at all. He said that this disease is eating them and that the rash tells where the diseased part is, he thinks that since hers is closer to her heart it could be affecting her more, but it's just a theory. Barney has a little bit longer to go because he woke up for about forty-five minutes earlier this morning while you were all sleeping and I was meeting with the victim's family. But, if they don't figure out what it is they're both going to die," Booth replied tensely.

"Oh."

**A/N: Suspense! I know! I wanted to make this a longer chapter which is why it took me awhile to write. Sorry. I hope you're happy with this one, I thought I put some good ideas into it, I also hope that you like all of your different emotions you get in this chapter. Oh and I know a few of House's words are kind of stupid, I'm not good at coming up with the witty things that he says, so…just try not to expect too much. **


	6. Chapter 6

Booth stared at his face in the mirror. Unshaven, pale, hollow eyes with red rims, and the look of hopelessness. He wiped his hand over his face tiredly and leaned back against the bathroom wall.

After he'd talked to Shawn the wave of despair had inched up and over him again. He had to choke back tears when Robin woke up and asked him about the two. The hope in her eyes were what pushed him over the edge, so Shawn told her for him and he'd come to the bathroom.

He just couldn't believe that after everything she'd been through she was going to die now. Booth angrily wiped his eyes. Where was a shooting range when you needed one? Maybe punching the wall would suffice…?

His phone chirped and he looked down. It was Sweets. Did he want to answer it? Sweets would be able to tell immediately what kind of state Booth was in, but this could be something important about the case.

Sighing he answered it. "Booth."

"Agent Booth? Are you alright?" Sweets asked worriedly. Damn it.

"I'm fine, what do you want Sweets?"

"Are you sure you're alright? You sound devastated, did something happen to Dr. Brennan?"

"She's not going to make it unless we find out what's wrong. Now, what did you call me for? Do you have something about the case?" Booth was almost shouting.

"Oh Agent Booth. That must be hard for you to handle on your own. Especially considering your….feelings for Dr. Brennan. I'm sorry, I wish I could be there, for you and her."

Sweets was really pretty ballsy over the phone, talking about him and Brennan's relationship, it was probably because he couldn't see Booth's glare. "And I wish you would tell me why you called," he said through gritted teeth. Sweets's digressions were barely manageable usually, but when it was about something he didn't want to talk about, they were practically unbearable.

"Well for one I called to ask about Dr. Brennan and ask how things were going up there. But I also called to tell you more about the suspect other than his name. So when you go to question him you can identify him easily. He's tall, about 6'5, with brown hair and blue eyes, very fit, originally from California," Sweets said.

"Is that it?" Booth asked tiredly.

"Yes. Hey, I won't push it any more after this, but if you need to talk to someone, I'll listen. I'm here for you, Booth." Sweets hung up the phone.

Booth let out a breath. "Yeah, I know."

*Robin stood by Lily, Ted, and Marshall, all of them staring in at Barney's still body. If what Shawn told her was right, and it should be since it came from the doctor, Barney was going to die. It was pretty clear that they weren't going to figure out what the disease was.

She just wished she could talk to him once more, or look at his beautiful blue eyes that held so much emotion. _NO!_ Robin shook herself out of it, if she let herself think that way she was going to cry and she didn't want to cry around everyone else. She was well aware that no one would judge her and that it would be understood, but she still didn't want to.

"Robin? Are you okay?" Ted asked, looking at her and dropping his voice so it was between the two of them.

"What do you mean?" she asked, she heard the waver in her voice and brought a fingertip to the skin under her eyes. It was wet, she'd been crying.

"You're tearing up and the tears are actually leaving your eyes."

"Yeah? So?" she refused to think that Ted could possibly know the whole reason she was crying. He couldn't. No. She never gave anything away.

"You're Robin Sherbatsky, you don't cry," he responded.

But Robin wasn't in the mood to joke around right now. She shook her head and walked away to an empty room somewhere. She collapsed on a chair and let the tears loose. "Barney," she whispered, picturing his face. His brilliant blue eyes that always shone no matter what he was doing, his smile that was so contagious that even when she was as pissed as she could be she found herself fighting the urge to smile back, his soft blond hair that just made his appearance all the more brighter. It was so much different from the way he looked now; his skin ashen and pale, his hair limp and somewhat dulled, his eyes covered, his mouth making no expression at all.

Thinking of that only made her cry harder. Why did she care so much about him? Couldn't she stop caring so much, just so she could get through this? Being able to handle his death would be so much easier if she didn't love him so much.

Wait. Did she just consider that she loved him? Then she realized that it was true. She did love him, she'd never really stopped. And that epiphany brought on another round of tears.

*Shawn and Gus were out of ideas and almost out of time.

"Dude, we have to come up with something," Gus said, gesturing to the mourning. It looked like there was actually tears in his eyes as well.

"I know, but I'm not a doctor. I don't know how to figure stuff like this out. I'm at a dead end," Shawn said in exasperation. He was really quite upset about that fact.

"Then we should help with the murder investigation and stop meddling with the medical stuff. We're better with the murder stuff anyway. Come on, let's go find Booth."

Shawn wasn't entirely sure if that was a good idea judging by the hurry Booth had left in earlier when Robin had asked about everyone. Booth needed a little bit of time alone. But there was also a murderer to catch, and he was going to help.

So he followed Gus and they wandered around a little. Eventually they passed a bathroom and heard muttered swear words leaking under the door in a voice that sounded just like Special Agent Seeley Booth's.

Shawn looked at Gus and they silently discussed the results of going in to see what was wrong. In the end they decided to knock and see how things went from there.

Of course, neither of them wanted to knock and possibly irritate the FBI agent, so they decided with a game of rock, paper, scissors.

Gus lost so he raised one shaky hand and rapped his knuckles against the fire-proofed wood of the door.

"What?" the pissed and sad sounding Booth demanded through a clenched jaw that was audible.

"Um, we wanted to see if we could help with the murder investigation," Gus said nervously, eyeing the door as if it was about to attack him.

"Yeah, back in Santa Barbara we had plenty of experience. The rest of your team isn't here so we'd be happy to help. These psychic powers do come in handy when it comes to murder investigations. Right Gus?"

"Uh, uh huh," Gus said, still looking at the door nervously.

The door opened, revealing a haggard looking Agent Booth. He looked lost and hopeless. "Normally I wouldn't agree, but I'm all on my own here and I do need some help."

Shawn couldn't help his grin. "Alright then."

*House was being driven crazy by this case and he hated it. His patients were dying and he still didn't have any ideas about what the disease could be.

Foreman and Chase were yapping back and forth about probable diagnoses the he had already been through last night.

"How about, instead of restating everything that we know it's _not_ you try working on what it _is_," he said irritably, rubbing his eyes and fixing the two with a cold look.

"We're at a dead end. I can't think of anything else that it could be. There's always the possibility that it's two things, but without more tests and more time we can't start narrowing it down," Foreman said.

"And the patients are too weak to get more samples or to do more tests on," Chase stated, soundly equally annoyed.

"Then think _harder_," House said sarcastically, leaning back and twirling his cane absentmindedly. There had to be an answer somewhere, he just wasn't looking in the right places.

*Robin was back in the hallway outside Bareny's door. She'd been done crying for a while now and after she'd made sure that the redness was gone from her eyes, she went back.

She was mostly there for the other three now. In fact, she tried her hardest to ignore the two rooms that contained the two dying people. It wasn't easy but she managed somehow.

Hours passed and she silently counted the minutes that Barney and Brennan were asleep. At some point Booth came back with Shawn and Gus and it looked like they were all thinking about something. Booth immediately went to the glass wall that separated them from Brennan and Gus and Shawn stood close and seemed like they were trying to work something out.

After a few minutes, Shawn turned gracefully and had one hand up, mouth open, about to say something. Then Booth's phone rang and Shawn dropped his arm with a disappointed look on his face.

Booth picked up the phone and held it to his ear. "What?"

* "I know what it is!" Hodgins said excitedly on the other line.

Booth refused to get his hopes up. "What are you talking about?"

"The disease! I know what it is, what's causing it, and a little bit more about the case. King of the lab? Yes I am."

"Get on with it Hodgins," Booth growled, still refusing to believe it, bracing himself for disappointment.

"Okay, okay. So the bones had a bacteria on and in them, syco-you know what, you won't know what it is anyway so I won't bother. But, the bacteria, when it touches skin, burrows its way down and begins feeding off of the new host, making it parasitic bacteria. Just tell the doctor and they should know the treatment. Maybe. See, the bacteria originates in Indonesia and isn't commonly found because people there know not to be in places that it habitats. So you can conclude that our victim was a foreigner and picked up some of these nasty things. We can assume that she had the same disease but that our killer got to her first. If Brennan is treated like now, she should be okay, but you have to tell the doctors now."

"And you're sure about this?"

"Absolutely positive, I'm never wrong about things like this. Now go save people Agent Booth, we'll keep working over here."

"Okay, thanks Hodgins."

"Of course."

Booth hung up and turned to the others. They were all looking at him warily, wondering what kind of news it was. He let a smile leak onto his face and he nodded, "I know what it is. Let's get one of the doctors down here."

* "So it's a parasitic bacteria starting with syco?" Chase asked with a raised eyebrow.

The black doctor looked like he was thinking, he looked up, "I think I know what it is, come on we have to tell House."

The two doctors left and Shawn watched them go. He looked at the others.

Robin and Lily were looking at each other in excitement. Marshall and Ted looked relieved. Booth was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, looking like he was trying not to cry. Brennan and Barney were still unconscious.

"Things are looking up now Gus, things are looking up," Shawn muttered.

**A/N: No, I didn't die, and I'm back from my hiatus. So much has happened in the past couple of months. I was struck by EXTREME writer's block for this story, however I have written a lot of other stuff and I think that my writing has definitely improved. Hopefully I can finish this whole story up semi-quickly and you can stop waiting forever. The next one will hopefully be soonish. However, my teachers, particularly my English teacher, don't think that we deserve lives outside of school so…and there's the fact that I'm working on other things too. The wait won't be nearly as long as this one was though. **

**And, I wasn't able to see the very ends of these shows and haven't been able to find them on the internet so I'm not following those story lines (Brennan's not pregnant)**

**And thank you SO SO much to the people that have added this to their alerts or favorites and for the reviews I've received. Really, the last two, one review and one addition to story alerts, were what pushed me to come back and try to work things out. **

**If you want to see my other work that I've talked about go to fan and search Complexmind. Only do this if you're not a homophobe, if you're a homophobe, don't go, you won't like it. (I've found bandslash and I love it) And if people would review those things I would seriously love you forever because fan works is slowly dying. **

**Okay, that's it. Bye. **


	7. Chapter 7

Robin watched the doctors in their bulky white suits work around both Barney and Brennan and she couldn't help the mixture of both nervousness and relief. She was thrilled that they knew what it was now, but the doctors themselves had said that they weren't sure how to treat it and that they were just trying something.

But, she was still filled with hope as she watched the doctors hook things up and put different medications into the IV's. In fact, she was so happy that she had to continually fight back the smile that was pushing on her lips at the thought of hearing and seeing Barney again.

"Well it looks like your mood's improved a bit," Shawn observed as he came up to stand by her.

"Yeah, well the situation's improved a bit," she answered, eyes not leaving the room.

"When Barney gets out of the hospital, we're definitely going to have to go out and have the biggest celebration possible at McLaren's," Marshall said, already looking like he was already planning everything out.

"And I'll be the best wingman he could ever have," Ted said, looking a little happy at the thought.

Robin let herself smile this time. The talk made her feel like it was going to work and things would be better.

*Booth watched anxiously as the doctors worked on Brennan. Along with hooking her up to the new medicine they were doing some general things like checking her vitals.

When the doctors turned to each other and started talking he had to restrain himself from pounding on the window and demanding to know what was happening.

They came out about fifteen minutes after they went in and they pulled their helmets off.

"If it's the right treatment we should see results in a few minutes. They probably won't wake up immediately but if it's taking effect then they should in maybe a half hour," the female doctor with brown hair said.

"Thank you so much," Lily said, positively beaming, looking genuinely excited.

"What are you looking forward to the most about having her back?" Ted asked, looking up with curious eyes.

"Ted, come on, don't ask things like that," Robin scolded, eyes still fixed into the two rooms, looking a little on edge.

"Why? The doctors said things will be okay, I just asked what he was looking forward to," Ted defended.

"It's okay. There's a lot that I have to do when she wakes up but I think that the thing I'm looking forward to the most is her intelligence and her correcting everything. In other words I'm just looking forward to having her back," he said distractedly.

*House sat in his office, gazing out the window. The rest of his team had just left, telling him that they'd administered the medication and that they would know for sure its effect after about thirty minutes.

And he was pissed now. He was pissed because he hadn't figured out what it was, some scientist did. Sure it was great that the patients weren't going to die and that it was due to him knowing what the treatment was, but half the fun was figuring out what the disease actually was.

And that's what he was explaining to Wilson at that very moment.

Wilson sat across from him and raised an eyebrow. "Don't you think that's just a little pathetic? You want to solve the puzzle more than you want to save a life," he said.

"Oh really? Why do I continuously risk my career and this hospital's reputation to be able to do something that will help my patient if I only care about the puzzle?"

"Because I think that there's a human somewhere in there."

House scowled but refrained from saying anything. "Now, the other problem. One of the patients is hiding something, something big and I want to know what it is. What you need to help me do is figure out how to get him to spill."

Wilson scoffed. "What do you want me to suggest, truth serum?" he asked jokingly.

House felt his jaw loosen and drop just a little. "Yes, I can't believe I didn't think of it before," he muttered, standing and leaving his office in a rush.

Wilson stared after him and sighed. Nothing good could come of that.

*_He was standing at the end of a long table with fierce faces looking down at him. But probably the most terrifying was the big black stallion directly opposite him. There were tears streaming down his face and he was saying something but he couldn't hear himself. _

_One of the others, Fake Thomas Jefferson, stood up and stalked over to him. _

"_You've betrayed us all! How could you possibly think we would show you mercy?" he screamed at him. _

_He flinched a little and was launched into another blinking fit, one he hadn't had for years. _

_Bad Horse nickered loudly, silencing Fake Thomas Jefferson and the others who'd started to join in on the rebuking. _

_One of the singing cowboys spoke up. "You're going to have to carry out another assignment to prove your loyalty to the Evil League of Evil." _

_He looked down at the table, waiting for the information. _

"_You're going to have to kill someone. Maybe that pretty little brunette that you hang around," the other cowboy said. _

_His head snapped up and he met the gazes of all the others. Some looked like they were satisfied with this ruling and some of them were still glaring at him. _

_He didn't know what to do or say or what to make of what he'd just heard. _

Barney woke with a jolt, sweating and breathing shallowly. He sat up and realized that he didn't feel as hot as he had before and that he actually felt a little better. He looked beside him and noticed that the IV had been changed. Had they found out what the disease was?

He thought back to his dream, or rather, his nightmare. He felt the familiar ache in his chest when he thought back to those days and what had happened to the woman he'd loved.

And now there was Robin. He'd accepted that he loved her again, if he'd ever even stopped, and that there wasn't much to do about it. He just wondered if it was okay to love someone else after Penny. But who was he kidding? He and Penny had never been anything more than friends, and not even regular friends, just friends who saw each other and talked at the Laundromat that they both went to.

Barney put his head in his hands, figuring that he was going crazy.

Then he noticed that there was a man standing outside of his room, staring in at him, the same one as before. This time he didn't look away though and he held the gaze.

Slowly the man approached and he slid the glass door open.

"What the-?" he asked but was cut off.

"I'm Doctor House, the one in charge of your case. Be nice because I can kill you. All I'm doing is administering another dose of your new medicine."

"What is it?" Barney asked suspiciously. He would know because he had general knowledge of medicine. He was a scientist for God's sake.

"Oh you wouldn't know, too long and confusing. Don't worry, I know what I'm doing," the doctor said, taking a syringe out of his pocket and inserting it into the IV line.

"Try me," he challenged but the doctor only shook his head.

"I don't want to make you think too hard right now as you're just beginning to recover. You should actually go back to sleep, aren't you getting tired?"

Now that he thought about it, his eyes _were_ a little heavier. The doctor smiled and left.

He rested back on the pillow and closed his eyes, drifting off into another nightmare.

*House watched the patient fall asleep and he slipped back into the room to hear what the blond man was saying. The point of the drug he'd injected was to put him to sleep and get him to remember things and speak them.

"Bad Horse…Penny…no, I'm not like that….I can't…NO…It's not what I thought it was, Moist…It's not right…I'm going back home…," then it fell into incomprehensible mumbling about singing cowboys and a man named something 'Hammer'.

House shook his head. It was a dream, he was hearing a dream, that was it. And obviously the dream had nothing to do with the secret.

He left the room, teeth clenched, wondering what else he could try.

*Booth woke with a start and he looked into Brennan's room on instinct. He did a double take when he saw her eyes open and her head held a little higher.

He stood and rushed to the glass, tapping a little to get her attention.

When her gaze turned on him he couldn't prevent the rush of joy, the clenching of his heart when he saw her beautiful eyes and her slight smile.

"Booth!" he heard her voice say happily, muffled from behind the thick glass.

"I'm here Brennan," he whispered. "Right here."

She motioned a little for him to come into the room with her. He wondered if he should then figured that he didn't really care.

Booth pushed the door aside and went into the room, closing the door softly behind him so that the others didn't wake up.

The two of them, one standing, one sitting, just looked at each other. There was nothing else that they could do. They stood there and looked at each other with smiles on their faces.

"Did they find out what it is? Is that why I feel better?"

"Yeah, Hodgins figured it out and called me. Are you feeling better?" he asked, hoping that Hodgins was right.

"Much better. What is it?"

"Well I don't know the name but he said that the disease is from a rare bacteria found on the bones. When you handled them at the crime scene you were infected."

"And what does this bacteria do?" Brennan asked, looking interested.

"It burrows into your skin and bones, feeding off of you," Booth recalled.

"Hmmm, it doesn't sound like something I know," she mused, looking a little troubled. Not knowing things _did tend to irritate her. _

"_Well, Hodgins said that it's found in Indonesia and that our victim was definitely not familiar with the surroundings if she got infected with it," he answered. _

_Brennan nodded. "Okay, that makes sense. Have you gotten anything else?" she asked. _

"_Not much, I talked a little bit to the victim's mother and sister and we have a suspect that I still need to go out and question." _

"_Why haven't you yet? Or, you can go now," she said, looking confused and she was right to, he usually never took much time to go and question a suspect. _

"_You've been unconscious and I've been here to make sure that you're okay," he answered. _

"_You didn't have to, the others would keep an eye on me and they could call you and tell you if something bad happened," she said with that confused look that she always had when they were talking about things like this, meaning that she didn't understand his concern. _

"_That's not the point. I needed to be here myself," he tried to explain. "You know, sometimes it's not enough to have someone tell you what's happening, sometimes you have to see it and be there yourself." _

"_So, you were here because you needed to know everything yourself," she clarified. _

"_Well yeah. And, details get left out when it's a second-hand account."_

_She looked down at the sheets, a very un-Bones thing to do. Then she looked up at him in the eyes. "What would you do if I told you that I loved you?" _

_He was dumbstruck. Sure he'd known because of that one night when he was still with Hannah but Bones had never said it out loud, and neither had he. _

"_What would you do," he asked, "if I said the same thing?" _

_She put one hand on his cheek and leaned in to kiss him. It was mind-blowing. It was something that he'd dreamed about. And sure they'd kissed before but every single dream took those feelings and amplified them until he was sure that it was impossible for a simple kiss to feel that way. But of course, Bones had to prove him wrong and knock every single one of those dream kisses out of the way with the real feeling that was so much more. _

_The kiss didn't last long, no matter how it felt, and they were looking at each other again, faces closer, both with surprised expressions on their faces. _

"_Funny how we would do the same thing," he whispered with a smile that got wider when she returned it. _


	8. Chapter 8

**Oh my God, it's an update! I'm so sorry that this took so long. I got really distracted along the way and lost interest, but here it is, the final part. Just as I promised (last year). Sorry about that guys, I hope you enjoy and that this was at least kind of worth the wait.**

Barney was waking up. He was waking up and Robin was watching to make sure he actually did wake up. It was really early in the morning and she'd just come back from the cafeteria to get coffee. Since the treatments started to work she didn't sleep much anymore, wanting to see when things changed. She was going to be in that room when Barney was awake and they were going to clear up all of this that was between them.

Robin let herself into the room just as Barney's head started moving around on the pillow and he started blinking. His color was back and he definitely looked healthier and the only person she had to thank was one of Brennan's co-workers back in Washington DC.

"Robin?" his voice was quiet and a little distant but all in all it sounded just like Barney. All that she seemed able to do at the sound of it—the sound she didn't think she'd hear again—was smile and nod with wide eyes. She stepped closer to the bed and the confused looking man lying on it.

As soon as she was close enough she lost her self-control. Robin launched herself at Barney, hugging him as hard as she could. The little laugh that left her mouth wasn't intentional and it didn't sound like her, but she didn't care about that right now. All that she could care about was the fact that she was feeling the rise and fall of Barney's chest under her and the feeling of his hands resting hesitantly on her back.

When she pulled away, she was still smiling and Barney looked like he'd caught up. He sat up a little more and moved so he was still resting on the pillows but more on her level. A very tentative and distant smile made its way onto his face.

"You're awake. I can't believe it, you're awake." Robin could almost feel like she was welling up but the tears receded as soon as she felt them. Barney's smile brightened a little bit and his eyes were brightening, too. The blue started looking more like it was supposed to.

"I don't think I can believe it either. This is just what all of my dreams look like. Well…" his face darkened a little at the end but he seemed to shake out of it as soon as Robin was going to ask about it. Barney looked back up at her with a soft look on his face. "It's really nice that this is real, though."

She bent down again and moved his hair away from his forehead, content to just smile back at him. He looked like he was okay with the same thing, but his expression fell again and he sighed. "Robin, I have to tell you something." He looked thoughtful. "Two things, possibly more."

Robin nodded warily. "Okay Barney." She wanted to be ready for whatever this was but she wasn't sure. Still, there wasn't much she could do to but let him go on and tell her whatever he needed to tell her. He nodded and glanced over at the laptop that was sitting on the table by his bed, swallowing.

"Alright, so there are two items of really, really big news and I'm not sure if you'll think of one of them as good or bad, so I'll just tell you both as if they were equal even though they really aren't. Just know that there's a plus side to both so don't get too worked up." Now he was rambling and Robin put a hand on his knee to get him to stop. He blinked a few times, almost nervously and very much not like Barney. "Right, I'll get on with it.

"This one, is that I'm not exactly completely who you think I am, all the way." He winced as he said it and Robin frowned.

"What the hell are you talking about Barney?"

"I should have started with the first one, it would have been much shorter. So you'll just have to listen to this whole story I guess. Uh, so, remember when Ted and I had our falling out and I kind of disappeared for a while?" Robin nodded. "I went out to Los Angeles and kind of ditched the suits for hoodies and got an apartment with a roommate who sweat a lot. I didn't take much money with me and I was living in a dumpy part of town, but it was all kind of nice.

"I went out there to get away and because I heard of this thing called the ELE or the Evil League of Evil." Robin laughed, she couldn't help it, and Barney gave her a look. She just motioned for him to go on, swallowing the laughter. "Here's something you might not know about me. I'm kind of a genius. Don't give me that look, I'm serious. It's part of why I drink so much, to get rid of all of the stuff that just constantly comes into my brain. I've invented a freeze ray, dammit. It works, not for long, but it works. There are other things but that's probably my biggest success.

"The problem, though, came when I met a girl in the Laundromat." Barney's expression grew more pained and Robin could almost guess what was coming. "Her name was Penny and she was beautiful and I fell in love with her. It didn't matter, though, because I was terrified of talking to her for some reason. She was trying to build this homeless shelter and she asked me if I would sign her petition and that's what started our little friendship.

"Every day that we were both at the Laundromat, we would talk and eat frozen yogurt and it was all really amazing. Then Captain Hammer, douchebag that he is, or was, last time I checked he was in the fetal position. Captain Hammer "saved" Penny and they started dating and he got really serious when he knew that I was in love with her. He was a "hero" and he was my, or well, Dr. Horrible's nemesis. You wouldn't believe the number of times that I got beat up by him." Robin was wearing a look of disbelief but she wasn't sure that Barney noticed because he was staring into space like he was watching it all unfold on the clear glass wall.

"I was trying to get into the ELE and they said that to prove myself I had to kill someone. When Hammer started dating Penny, I knew that that was who I was going to go after. Hammer signed Penny's petition, so of course the mayor granted the permission for it to be set up and they built a memorial statue of Hammer. At the big opening ceremony, I stole the statue and hid under there with my death ray and my freeze ray. I froze him, he came unfrozen before I could shoot him and he knocked me down. He tried to use the death ray on me but it exploded and poor Penny was the only one hurt, stabbed by the shrapnel." Barney faltered a little at that point and Robin waited for him to finish his story.

"She died and I got into the ELE but it didn't turn out to be anything like what I thought, so I dropped out and came back to the East coast. I have dreams about the ELE and Penny and all of that in Los Angeles almost every night. It's this one black cloud that hangs over my head." Robin frowned a little and reached out to touch Barney's shoulder.

"I'm sorry Barney. I really, really am." The only reason she was sure that this wasn't a joke was because it genuinely looked like Barney was haunted and tearing up. Otherwise, she would have written it off as another of those strange, somewhat dumb Barney stories that he always told. Robin swallowed again and sat beside him putting one arm around his shoulder. "I'm really glad that you're here, though." For some reason what he'd just told her didn't bother her. Maybe it was because nothing really happened or maybe it was because she knew Barney and trusted him for some inexplicable reason.

He took a minute to compose himself and he smiled up at Robin. "That brings me to the other piece of business that I have to tell you about. I just thought that you should know what you're getting into before I tell you about it."

"Got it, you're an evil genius."

"The other thing that I needed to tell you was that I'm still in love with you. It came up a few months ago when I was with this other girl one night. I just decided now that I've had enough of holding onto it. Also, I almost died and I'm kind of vulnerable now so I can blame it on the fact that I just woke up from a coma if you reject me and I look back on it later." He cut off because Robin was laughing.

"You're an idiot." It was all she could manage before she leaned in and kissed him firmly on the lips. The feeling was one of the most comforting things in the world and she couldn't believe she'd let herself go on so long without doing this.

*House smirked to himself as everything fell silent. He leaned back in his chair and lifted his feet onto his desk, rotating back and forth. So that was what the blonde-haired man had been keeping a secret. It could have been a crazy delusion, but House was privy to all of the man's medical charts and had therefore seen the various IQ tests and the brain scan that had been taken over the years. The man wasn't lying about being a genius. On the various scans recently taken, there was also evidence of many healed bones from breaks and fractures, suffered a few years ago.

The rest of it may have been true as well. House remembered hearing something about that from a patient a while ago. So he'd cracked open the mystery of the blonde man and now his work was complete. Both patients were going to live and would be discharged by the next day and he'd solved all of his personal goals. It was another case completed in his eyes.

*Shawn yawned and blinked, rubbing his eyes as he sat up. It was early morning and there were only two people in their little group that were awake. He looked around and couldn't see Booth anywhere, but he did find Robin. She was in with Barney and it looked like they were engaged in a pretty fierce game of tonsil hockey.

He laughed to himself and got up to get coffee and find Booth. There were questions that he had regarding the murder and he wanted to ask Booth to see if he knew the answers to any of them. Shawn knew that he'd heard something about a suspect and seeing as how Brennan was awake now, he was willing to offer his and Gus's services in finding and evaluating this suspect.

Luckily enough for him, he found Booth in the cafeteria with the same idea that he had. "Booth my good man, a word?" he raised his voice just enough so he could be heard and to slightly annoy the FBI agent. Booth was kind of like Lassie, but much more irritable and likely to punch him.

Apparently, his irritability was curbed this morning because he only sighed as he walked closer to Shawn. He looked happy and Shawn took a not so wild guess that it was because him and Brennan were finally together, or something along those lines.

"What do you want?" The FBI agent asked in a good-natured tone. Shawn thought that he looked interested so he decided to get to the point rather than try to butter him up.

"I overheard you talking about a suspect and I was going to tell you that I was willing to offer my services to you as help."

"Thanks, but I can't have a civilian doing that."

"My friend and I aren't civilians though. We're detectives that work with the Santa Barbara Police Department. Call up Lassie and he'll tell you. Besides, I know that you won't want to be leaving now that you've got your lady love back."

Booth stepped up closer so the space between them was even smaller. His voice dropped and he actually looked threatening, something that Lassie was never able to pull off. "What do you know about that?"

"I just know that you were in a good mood that I haven't seen you in since she was gone. Besides, from the way you were talking about her, I can tell that you're in love with her. So what do you say? Gus and I could go and evaluate the suspect."

It seemed like Booth was thinking about it and he relaxed his grip on the front of Shawn's shirt. "Fine. I'll give you the information and the two of you can go out and talk to him. I don't want you doing anything else, though, understand?"

Shawn snapped a mock salute and Booth looked annoyed by it, but he stepped away nonetheless. Shawn just grinned and followed him.

"No, Shawn, I don't want to go and check out a suspect."

"Dude, it's the only reason we're here in the first place," Shawn pointed out.

"No, we were in New York for a break, then you decided to come to New Jersey and get us roped into another investigation," Gus argued. Shawn could tell that wasn't going to take much more pushing to get his friend to join him, though.

"Well, fine. I'll just go investigate and bring this poor woman's murderer to justice all by myself," Shawn said. He put his hands in his pockets and started walking off, counting in his head the amount of time that it would take Gus to start following him. He barely got to six.

*Barney couldn't believe what was happening. Robin was in the cafeteria to get them some food before the official breakfast came around, and he was sitting up in his bed feeling better and reliving everything.

They were back together, at least that was what he was assuming. She called him an idiot after all, that meant that she returned his feelings. And the making out had been pretty sweet. Barney smiled to himself and realized that he was really glad that he'd broken off with the ELE no matter how scared he'd been doing it or how unsure he was about it.

"Hey Barney." Robin had her own coffee and some type of Jell-O. She handed Barney a bottle of water and a little omelet.

Barney eagerly dug into the omelet, though it wasn't nearly as good as one that could be cooked from home. Robin was sitting in her chair, watching him closely. He slowed enough to pause and ask, "What?"

"I don't know, I'm trying to add everything together and fit it all with the Barney Stinson I already know." Her brown eyes were looking at him sharply and from all the time that he'd already known her, he was torn between being worried and being a little thrilled by the fact that she was taking him seriously.

"Take your time," he told her, smirking a little bit. Robin rolled her eyes, but refrained from commenting and only smiled a little bit.

"Hey! Is that Barney?!" Barney looked over at the glass where the muffled shout came from. Marshall was gaping into the room with wide eyes and he was bending over, shaking Lily and Ted awake. Barney simply waited, resisting the urge to roll his eyes or make a face. It was too nice to see his friends again to get hung up on Marshall's annoying tendency to state the obvious.

Both Ted and Lily looked shocked when they looked into the room and they were all quick to come through the door, their noise increasing in volume as soon as they did. Lily came over immediately to give Barney one of her hyper/hysterical hugs and Ted just rested a hand on Barney's shoulder, looking immensely relieved.

Everyone was talking at once and Barney lightly tuned it out, meeting Robin's eyes. She was smiling and watching everyone, but she turned her eyes to look at him, still smiling. The smile turned warmer on him, though, and Barney couldn't help returning it.

*"I don't know Shawn, this doesn't seem like a good idea, even by your standards." Shawn barely spared a glance at his best friend. "We're not supposed to be on someone's private property."

"Gus, first of all, when has that stopped us before? Second, if the guy is going to leave his gate unlocked anyway, he's just inviting people to his 'private property'," Shawn answered, looking ahead to the white house that he could see right through the line of trees directly in front of him.

One of the shutters was loose, and that window was slightly open. The door was solid and strong, not something that he or Gus would be able to break down. There were windows along the bottom of the house, leading into a basement. The glass looked old and it was dirty. Then there were the black marks on the pavement leading up to the door. Shawn ran over the details of the case and he smiled a little bit. Burn marks.

"Alright Gus, we're going in."

"What? No, Shawn, we're not breaking into this house."

"Who knows, maybe we won't have to. But come on, Gus. Innocent dead woman, the definite killer, all the answers in that building," Shawn said, pointing. Gus was obviously debating, but then he looked down and sighed.

"Fine." Gus got up first from where they were crouched and he looked at the house as Shawn followed him in standing up. "So do you have a plan this time?"

"I always have a plan, Gus." Shawn responded, starting toward the door of the house without a glance backward.

There was no shelter in the front yard and Shawn carried himself with his normal confidence, though he was a little bothered by the fact that they were in the open like this. He'd decided on a course of action, though, and now that he had, he acted it out. Besides, he should have been used to walking up to and talking with murderers. He'd done it many, many times before.

On the porch step, he stopped and waited for Gus to arrange himself, then he reached out and knocked on the door. There was shout from inside, telling them to wait a minute. Shawn glanced over at Gus and raised a little thumbs up. Gus swallowed and nodded, before turning back to look at the door.

It opened and a tall, broad man appeared. There was scruff on his face, approximately two days old by Shawn's estimate, it looked like he'd just gotten dressed—from what, Shawn couldn't guess—as his hair was messed up and the clothes were wrinkly and mismatched, he looked like he was built solidly, not too muscled but incapable of being hurt by either himself or Gus should things get ugly.

"Can I help you?" he asked. There was a slight annoyed sound to his voice, like they were interrupting something.

"Yes, actually. We are a part of the Academy of Urban Development. My partner and I are going around taking surveys and observations of different neighborhoods," Shawn said. "My name is Shawn, my partner, Harrison."

"Uh, I don't want to be part of that," the man said, moving back and closing the door, watching Shawn and Gus with guarded eyes.

"It's not optional, sir. You don't have to agree to the observation of your house, but the survey is mandatory. It won't take long, only five questions regarding your neighborhood and your satisfaction or dissatisfaction with it," Shawn interjected, sticking his foot in the door for some reason.

Something in the man's eyes flashed and Shawn backed away. He could tell that Gus was unnerved, too because he could feel the nervous energy radiating off of his friend. "Never mind, sir, we can leave your house out of the report. I'm sure that our supervisors won't really care anyway," Gus said.

An awful smirk curled on the man's face and he stepped forward. "Too late." He brought something out from behind his back and pointed it at them. Shawn was only able to register that it looked like some kind of laser gun out of a science fiction show before the world went black.

* "Have you heard anything from Gus and Shawn?" Booth asked again, for what must have been the seventh time. Once again—just to humor him, he was sure—everyone looked at their phones and looked back at him with blank expressions.

It had almost been an hour since the two had gone out to check out the lead and there had been no word. Somehow, Booth had known that they weren't going to do what he asked them to and now he had a really bad feeling. Everyone else looked mildly concerned as well.

Booth was pretty sure that the lead was the killer. He'd discussed it with Bones and after checking over all of the details a few times she agreed with him. What he wanted—and needed—to do was go after them, but the doctors were going to do another check of Bones and Barney.

Apparently they were recovering remarkably and the doctors felt like the two could be discharged if everything checked out. That was what was keeping Booth at the hospital.

Dr. Chase came into the room, then and everyone snapped their attention to the doctor. "Okay, we'll check vitals once more, and if everything seems to be working you'll all get to go home within the hour. So let's just get it over with."

The doctors worked efficiently, but thoroughly and it was taking a long time. Then Booth's phone buzzed with a text message.

The screen said that the message was from Shawn and Booth almost sighed in relief, until he actually read the message. It made no sense and Booth guessed that it was in some kind of code, which meant that Shawn and Gus were with the killer, probably not of their own choice.

"What is it?" Ted asked. Everyone was looking at him and he looked back, wondering what he was supposed to tell them.

"It's a message from Shawn, but I can't read it and I'm not sure what good it's supposed to do me," he answered. "I think that it's in some kind of code, meaning that he has to rush the communication because he's hiding the fact that he's doing it."

"Which means that the killer has the two of them," Lily finished for him. She was wide-eyed and everyone looked more worried now.

"Wait a second, you said something about a code?" Barney asked from inside his room where the doctors were working on him. Booth nodded and Barney motioned for him to go into the room. "Show me, I might be able to help."

Booth handed him the phone and waited as Barney studied the screen, frown deepening. "No, this doesn't have any kind of pattern that I can see. It looks like something that Marshall and Ted would have come up with."

Immediately, Booth turned to them. "Would you be able to decipher this?" he asked, holding the phone out to them. Ted took it and looked over it, holding it over for Marshall to see. They seemed to be discussing something, then Marshall looked up.

"He says that he's in the guy's house, tied up to a chair with Gus. Gus is still unconscious and they were both "shot" with some kind of laser gun before he woke up in the chair. Shawn says that the guy is definitely the killer because there are burn marks all over the house and in the basement, where they are, there are a ton more ray gun looking things. Oh, this place sounds cool if you take away the killer part of it." Marshall looked at Ted and the two nodded. Booth got their attention again.

"Could you send something back that he'll be able to read quickly?"

"Sure, the code that we came up with is really similar to this, he'll be able to figure it out," Ted answered. "Do you have anything specific that you want us to tell him?"

Booth nodded and delivered the message.

*Shawn's phone lit up and he quickly turned it into his jeans. The killer was upstairs and he glanced down at his phone. The code that got back was different from what he'd sent, but he was still able to read it. The message told him that the others would be on the way to help as soon as Brennan and Barney were done being checked again. He sighed and tilted his head back, shutting his phone and slipping it back into his pocket.

Again, he elbowed Gus a little bit to see if the other man was awake yet. There was no answer and Shawn dropped his chin to his chest. As soon as Gus was awake, they were going to try to get out. Shawn had been staring around the room since he'd woken up and he'd gathered as much information that might help them that he could.

There was very little within reach to be used for a weapon, one point for the killer. Shawn even had a hard time finding something with which to cut him and Gus away from the chairs that they were fastened to. However, once they were free, the fragile-looking windows that he'd noticed earlier were right overhead. All he had to do was stand up on one of the tables and he would probably be able to break it with one of the wooden blocks that was on the table, looking like it was used for measurement or something.

While he was doing that, though, Gus would have to take one of the ray guns and hopefully not kill himself or the other guy with it until Shawn got the window open. The ray guns were mounted on the walls, only accessible by climbing onto the table in front of them and navigating the mostly sharp-looking tools that covered the table top. Shawn hoped that he would be able to get the window open before any weapon was needed.

A gasp from behind him jolted Shawn out of his thoughts. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure that Gus really was awake then he smiled. "Nice to see you back in the land of the living, buddy."

"Shut up, Shawn. By the looks of it, I'm not going to be here for very long." He sounded nervous and panicky and Shawn immediately braced himself for the upcoming struggle in presenting his idea to his friend.

"Right, well, I have an idea that could help us out of that mess." Shawn continued to talk over the following groan and explained to Gus his whole plan.

"There's a lot left up to chance there, Shawn," he said disapprovingly.

"That's too bad, either we run with the chances or we get tortured and murdered by this guy."

"You say that you found something to use to cut us away from this chair?"

"Yes."

"Fine."

Shawn was confused as to what caused Gus's sudden change of heart, and then he heard what must have inspired Gus's decision. There were heavy footsteps right overhead. He looked down and started cutting at the rope and duct tape binding them to the chair with the piece of jagged metal that he'd picked up while they'd been hiding in the trees.

They were free in a few seconds and the two of them moved immediately to the tables. Gus picked up one of the guns, looking uncomfortable, while Shawn climbed up on the table with one of the blocks in his hand. He navigated the sharp tools while he moved closer to the window that looked like it led to the front yard. "You alright, buddy?" he asked over his shoulder. The footsteps were coming closer.

"Hurry up, Shawn," was the only answer that he got, in a shaky voice.

"No problem." He wrapped his hand in his sweatshirt sleeve and drew his arm back before bringing his fist, clutching the block, back to the window and going through.

At the sound of the glass shattering, the footsteps overhead stopped, then came back faster than before and mere seconds passed before Shawn heard the same heavy footsteps on the wooden stairs. He heard Gus shuffle the ray gun that he'd picked up and Shawn got to work clearing the glass out of the window pane. He wasn't sure now, though, that they would be able to make it through.

"Gus, get up here," Shawn said quietly once the glass was gone from the window. He glanced over his shoulder and looked back at Gus. He turned a little bit and held out a hand to help the other man up. Their captor and murderer was coming through the hallways toward their little room. "Alright, we don't have much time. You go through the window first and call the others, I'll stay here and hopefully stay alive long enough for the others to get here."

"Shawn, you must out of your damn mind." Gus handed off the gun that he held and took another one off of the wall, powering it up.

Shawn smiled and clapped Gus on the shoulder. Then the door to the room blew open.

*"Anything?"

"No, I haven't heard anything else from them."

"Dammit," Booth hit the steering wheel with an open palm and kept driving.

"Calm down and keep driving," Barney replied, fiddling with the device in his hands. "Alright, I think this'll work." He put the box on the dashboard and leaned back in his seat. The little remote would block the processes in the guns that enabled them to fire.

"You know where we're going, right?" Lily asked.

"It was where he sent them, where he was supposed to go," Brennan answered. Barney could see Lily nod out of the corner of his eye and closed his eyes when Robin rested a hand on his shoulder from the seat behind him. After that, everyone was silent.

"We're here," Booth said quietly, stopping the van across the street from a run-down looking white house.

Everyone pressed to the windows to look at the house, Barney included.

"It's funny, that doesn't look like a murderer's evil lair."

"This is the location that we got from the original report," Booth said, grimacing while looking out of the window. Barney turned back to the house and set his jaw.

"Well, let's not just sit here, let's go." He moved to get out of the van, but several hands caught on his shoulders, pulling him back. "What?"

"We need to have some kind of plan, don't we?" Lily asked, looking at Barney as if he were stupid. He rolled his eyes.

"Isn't it obvious? Booth and Brennan, get guns and cover for me. I go for the weak windows in the basement with the frequency disrupter," he picked up the little remote he'd been working on, "as it looks like one of the windows is broken. And you guys," he turned back to his friends, "have the van ready for Shawn and Gus to get in when they come out, since they'll probably be running." Barney looked at all of them, then, as if they were stupid to not see his idea. Only Brennan didn't look surprised by the plan.

"Alright, that's fine," Booth said, pulling out a gun and readying it. "Let's go."

"No, that's not fine," Robin interrupted. "Barney, what happens if you get shot by the ray gun, or if the psycho murderer has a regular gun as well and starts using that?" Barney grinned when a new idea came to mind.

"Okay then, come with me. You know how to shoot and I'm sure Booth has more guns." Robin smiled back at him.

"No, I'm not letting a civilian into this," Booth protested.

"Dude, Barney's a civilian," Ted pointed out.

Booth looked like he was about to answer, but Barney was fed up with the talking. He opened the door and started running for the house, ignoring everyone else yelling after him. It seemed that he wasn't alone, though, as he looked over to see Brennan running with him, a gun in hand. "I've got you covered, do what you have to do." Barney nodded and they split up. Brennan was going for the front door, and he was headed to the broken basement window.

As he got closer, Barney heard Shawn talking rapidly. He wasn't quite able to make out every word but from what he heard it sounded like Shawn was going over the murder and how it had happened based on the evidence. Eventually the story had to end, though, and by then Shawn would be dead.

He got down on his stomach and looked through the window. Both Shawn and Gus were standing on the table, easily in reach of the window, and they were both holding ray guns. Barney hoped that they didn't think they had to use them. There was also a man standing across from them, holding a more dangerous and advanced-looking form of a ray gun. The disrupter would maybe work from the outside, but Barney wasn't so sure about that. In order for everything to really work, the remote would need to be on the inside. He got closer to get a better look inside.

Gus was the closest of the two to the window and the killer looked to be quite focused on Shawn. Still, Barney needed to get Gus's attention as quietly as possible. Looking around himself for something that may work toward that purpose, he saw Robin kneeling beside him. She flashed him a smile, handed him a small rock, and Barney was fully reminded why he loved this intelligent, beautiful, sometimes scary woman.

Barney's aim wasn't the best, but the stone did get Gus's attention when it hit his shoulder and fell soundlessly to the work table. The window was to his left and he had the sense to look subtly. Barney waved a little and held up the remote, mouthing and miming the instructions to the best of his ability. Fortunately, Gus seemed to understand. Barney put the remote on the windowsill and he and Robin backed

away from the window so they were out of sight.

The two of them could still see and they watched Gus discreetly move backwards and slip the remote off of the windowsill. He moved back to his position, holding the remote behind his back. Barney hoped that Gus wasn't trying to be dramatic, but he couldn't think of any other reason why the man would wait. Barney heard Robin suck in a breath and he looked toward her, following her gaze to see that the killer now had his gun leveled at both Shawn and Gus. Barney could tell that it was powerful enough to kill them both in a single shot.

Barney felt Robin's hands on his shoulder as she grabbed him and leaned forward, yelling, "Now, Gus!" Shawn and the killer looked startled, but Gus only jumped a little and drew the remote in front of him, pressing the button.

*White light flashed through the air and Brennan was momentarily blinded. Her disorientation didn't end there, though, because she suddenly found herself knocked to the ground by a solid weight that could only belong to Booth.

They rolled a little bit, following his momentum, and came to rest with him lying mostly on top of her. Once they stopped, Brennan lifted herself onto her elbows and looked around. Everything looked the same, and she glanced toward the basement windows that Barney had headed toward. He and Robin appeared to be talking to someone through the broken window and she frowned before picking herself up and moving toward the space.

She and Booth kneeled down by the other two at the same time and noticed that Shawn and Gus were indeed inside the basement and seemed mostly unharmed. The man behind them on the floor was lying flat on his back, unconscious.

Booth was already looking like he wanted to get into the basement, so Brennan reached her hands through the window, along with Barney, to help lift Shawn out. Robin and Barney got Gus, and Booth hopped into the basement, pulling out handcuffs and his gun and going about taking care of the murderer.

Gus looked a little shaken up and so did Shawn, but the latter simply patted his friend on the shoulder, grinning and saying something about a 'Jules'. Robin looked interested in the two and was quietly asking them questions.

Barney caught her eye, then, and offered her a small smile. Brennan returned it and moved a little closer to him. They were survivors of some terrible, awful disease that they'd contracted from remains found behind a Dumpster in New York City, but Brennan knew somehow that Barney—like her—didn't see it as a bad thing.

Everyone else, upon hearing the story or seeing her back was going to be a symbol of pity, sympathy, and "oh my God, I'm sorry, how terrible". The disease, though, was what finally brought her and Booth together and what finally resolved whatever was going on with Barney and Robin. It may have been awful and painful and nerve-wracking, but it earned Brennan some new friends and an experience that was probably worth just about everything. She didn't regret touching those bones for a minute.

*Barney looked at Brennan sitting beside him. He thought that she was probably thinking exactly what he was thinking about all of this with the disease and the murder and all of the little factors that led to all of them becoming friends-of-sorts. He'd considered it all the while he was working on the remote that finally stopped the killer and subsequently had the unintended effect that all of Barney's inventions had, stopping the killer further.

Gus and Shawn looked okay and Booth looked more than happy when he marched out of the front door with the re-awakening killer held firmly. Brennan looked much happier than she had when Barney had first met her and he knew that the disease had given her as much as it had given him. He looked over at Robin then to see her eyes shining and a small smile—the likes of which he'd only ever seen on her face—making her lips curl.

She moved over to sit by him and laced her arm through his, leaning into his side. "So, you helped stop a bad guy and you got the girl. You kind of suck as an evil genius." They were both looking toward the van and watching Marshall and Ted freak out excitedly over the killer and Lily look on in fond amusement. She glanced over and gave them a huge grin, making Barney smile.

"Yeah, I was never really able to get the evil part down. I don't think that you can argue with the fact that I am a genius, though." He watched Booth push the killer into the back of the van. "I mean, I helped do that," he said, pointing.

Robin laughed a little bit. "You may have a point there. You're kind of evil when you're messing with Ted and Marshall and that guy that works in the building across from yours." Barney decided that he could give her that. "But, I think that you're perfect exactly how you are now. Maybe you aren't Evil League of Evil material-,"

"I did get into the ELE," he protested.

She ignored him. "But, what you are, the little bit of evil that's surrounded by all the good you hide, is perfectly fine for me."

Barney just grinned stupidly and leaned his head on hers. "I love you."

"You're an idiot."

*Booth was calling the local police for assistance in holding their murderer until the FBI could get more people gathered for a secure detail back to DC. Brennan was with him and Barney and Robin were talking quietly. Shawn had just fended off the questions from Ted and Marshall and now he was just breathing, knowing that he should call Juliet and tell her the whole story.

He could tell her about a case with a murderer whose preferred method of death was by barbeque and that he almost befell that same fate. He could tell her about a crazy disease that struck two people and he'd become wrapped up in their lives and friends while trying to solve the case. He could tell his girlfriend about the miraculous recovery of the two patient-friends after finding out just what it was. He could talk about the rescue he and Gus had required, executed by their new friends.

Really, Shawn could talk to her about anything and this most recent adventure gave him plenty of material. With a small smile and a look around the group of them, Shawn pulled out his cell phone and punched in her number so he could do just that.


End file.
